Making Music with Tabla Loops

Making Music with Tabla Loops Executive Summary What are Tabla Loops Tabla Introduction How Tabla Loops can be used to make a good music Steps to making good music I. Getting the good rhythm II. Loading with the software III. Experimenting IV. Adding vocals V. Adding instruments Recording Basics Recording with Audacity I. Recording II. Editing III. Exporting IV. Saving V. Normalizing VI. Effects VII. File Formats VIII. What is a good sound IX. Microphones X. Mixers XI. Audio Interface XII. Recording Software XIII. Effects Processing XIV. Acoustics 1

Executive Summary It is possible to create good music with Tabla Loops. Rhythms have a special significance helping to conceptualise music. Once inspired, music comes its own. Tabla Loops are known for its inspirational appeal. Good loops can inspire you to create good music. What are Tabla Loops Tabla Loops are a few seconds to a song length rhythm part of music that inspires to create good music. They are known for their acoustically inspiring properties and have psychological significance and a prerequisite for good music. Music and feeling (inspiration) has direct correlation. If you feel inspired (good) new music comes its own. You do not have to work hard to create music. Tabla Introduction Tabla is a traditional Indian percussion instrument. India is known for its rich cultural heritage in music. Since Vedic Times, music has its structural roots in its traditional grammar. This gave the Indians a rich sense of basic music abilities. Percussion is the form that is direct expression of human feelings and emotions without finer articulations. Due to being rich in rhythmic abilities and grammatical structure much of its rhythmic expressions were culturally assimilated into rhythms formed by Tabla. Tabla has rich database of rhythms to represent emotional feeling and related grammar to express it. With time, rhythms from different cultures have been absorbed by Tabla. Tabla is a two piece drum with leather skin mounted on top to produce finer rhythms and emotional variations. The right drum produces higher frequencies having mathematical variations and the left drum produces low frequency bass sound having finer emotional variations and feelings. 2

How Tabla Loops can be used to make a good music Steps to make a good music Getting the good rhythm A good music is a combination of proper rhythm and matching music. Musicians need feelings to make good music. Their mind needs to go to certain level where he feels inspired to create good music. Songs from different generes and cultural backgrounds are good source of inspiration. Tabla Loops are originally, intentionally and historically created to support the song. A single loop can ignite the inspiration for various songs. Firstly you have to get the rhythm. A lot of listening with various songs will help you. Second step into creating a good music is to bring that rhythm into your recording software. These software are not so difficult as they may seem. Fundamentally, they perform these basic functions. Giving you the ability to listen Giving you the ability to record Giving you the ability to add multiple instruments into your recording Giving you the ability to move recorded content from one part to other Giving you the ability to add additional effects Concept of Multitrack Recording Multitrack Recording gives functionality to add multiple instruments with the help of recording software and edit them individually having independent control over each track (instrument). You can add any no of instruments and manipulate their characteristics like volume, effects, intensity etc. Loading the rhythm into recording software Once you have selected the rhythm, that suits to your choice of music, you need to bring that into your recording software. Audacity is one such good software with almost all basic features that a good recording software may have. You can download it from the web (audacity.sourceforge.net) Here are the simple steps to load the loop into your music. 1. Get your rhythm loop 2. Load the audacity software. 3. Go to File Open (select your loop file, mostly this is in wav or mp3 format). Your loop gets loaded, what you would see a track with graphical representation.) 4. Listen this track 5. Spread this content for the desired length (duration) 6. Now you either sing or use other instruments with this and record this (while listening the rhythm track). 3

This way you can add multiple instruments, each instrument on a separate track but connected through a common timeline. Experimenting This is the most important part for your composing process. You listen the song many times at different occasions. Use your wisdom to add or subtract music. Here are a few examples what you can do to experiment: Adding a new instrument Modifying intensity Adding effects Adding silence Adding fade in, fade out Normalizing Equalizing The best advice The best advice is to keep music as simple as possible with minimum instruments, when you are starting composing music. The more the instruments, the more complex is the music and the more difficult is to handle it. Once you master the basic technical and aesthetic skill you can handle multiple instruments. Adding Second Track The important feature of recording software is its ability to let you record multiple instruments. You can manage those tracks but it makes the file larger becoming resource intensive and consuming more disk space. To add a new instrument, just press the record button. The new track will be created automatically one level below the existing track. You can start recording. Once your instrumental piece is finished, press stop button. Adding More Vocals / Instruments When you add vocal / Instruments, follow these steps: I. Get precisely to the point where you want to record the vocals. II. Listen the previously recorded tracks and use Stop button to stop exactly at the point where you want to add vocals. III. Click with the mouse to the point where you want to start recording from. IV. Start recording exactly by pressing recording button, recording will begin from the same point. V. Press stop when recording is over. Exporting Once you have recorded different instruments and vocals the next step is to convert all this technical file (file with multi track music) into two channel (stereo) common music format (wav, mp3). This process is called flattening the file and is used to make wav, mp3 the easily distributable formats. Here are the steps to export 4

1. Open the file (don t worry if it is already open) 2. Go to menu File Export 3. Press OK (Please see more about Exporting in Recording Basics section.) Exporting Formats A simple recording can be saved as 16 bit (441000 Hz) setting for wav sound file format. This is average resolution, you can keep the resolution higher according to your requirement. To distribute your music on CD this setting is good. To publish on internet you select mp3 format with 128000 to 192000 bps resolution depending on your choice for quality and file size. Higher resolution gives higher quality but requires more disk space. Higher resolutions are good when you are publishing for CD but for online publishing resolution from 128000 bps to 198000 bps is good. Here you have to take care of two things 1. When you export to wav or mp3 format it takes pre set values into consideration. The value that are already set with it. To change these settings follow the next step. 2. To change sound file resolution (format, bit rate) go to Edit Preferences. 3. Make the changes as wav or mp3 sound depth (bit rate) 44100 or more sound format 16 bit, 24 bit or more Recording Basics Recording with Audacity Recording Recording with Audacity is very simple. Here are the main steps to follow. 1. connect your microphone to mic input. 2. Press the recording button (Picture) 3. Checkout the mixer gain level to ensure how amplification is done. It should be 75 90%. 4. Start singing or playing with your voice or instrument 5. Press stop button, once you are done. This way you have recorded one track (instrument or voice). To save the file use these steps 1. Go to File Save 2. Give file name 3. OK Similarly you can record other tracks listening previous tracks. 5

Editing In editing process Audacity includes arranging the instruments, their intensities of volumes, removing and adding a certain part of music and adding effects to selected parts. Here are the main actions of editing processes. I. Copy and paste music. To copy and paste music follow these steps II. Listen the track III. Select the starting point and end point (with shift button) IV. Then apply Edit Copy V. Then apply Edit Paste The copied music will be moved to new place. Similarly you can copy and paste music from one track to another track or to a completely new file. Normalizing The normalizing process is used when you have finished recorded a track and you want to verify whether its sound levels (intensity) is appropriate. By this process recorded music is analyzed and rearranged in a given value by you. Normally we apply the default values that are preset with the given option. Here are the main steps to apply normalize process. 1. Select the part of the track you want to apply the normalize process. 2. Apply Effects Normalize 3. Listen preview sound (Verify if the option makes the audio quality better) 4. Click OK Effects There are various effects under Effect menu that can be applied carefully and aesthetically. Effects may add beauty to your music. To apply effects follow these steps. 6 1. Select the part of the track where you want to apply the effect. 2. Then Click Effect (and desired Effect from the menu) Main Effects and How to apply them Fade In Fade Out The effect Fade In is used in the very beginning of the song. The song starts gradually with no sound at the beginning. Similarly Fade Out is used to slow down the volume to 0 level gradually when the song ends. To apply these effects follow these steps. 1. Select the part of the song where you want to apply Fade In (or Fade Out) effect

2. Apply Effects Fade In (or Fade Out) Echo Echo is used to make the sound richer and appear professional. It fills the gap in voice and other acoustic properties. It may enhance the vocal quality depending on the nature of song. To apply Echo follow these steps I. Select the part of music where you want to apply the effect II. Apply Effects Echo You can use the preview option to verify the quality. Pitch This effect is used to change the pitch of the music without changing the tempo of song. To apply this effect follow these steps 1. Select the portion of music where you want to apply the change in Pitch. 2. Apply Effects Pitch You can give new values and see the desired changes by preview option. Tempo Similarly with Tempo effect you can change the tempo of the music without changing the pitch. To change the tempo of music follow these steps 1. Select the part of music where you want to apply change in Tempo 2. Apply Effects Tempo You can give new values and see the desired changes by preview option. Exporting Music recorded on Multi Tracks is exported into two track stereo files (preferably wav and mp3) to use it for publishing on cd, web or for distributing through other media. 7 Export as wav Wav is a high quality format to publish your music on CD. You can select 16 bit / 441000 Hz resolution to export your music. To export as wav follow these steps 1. Apply File Export as wav 2. Give the file name

3. Apply OK Export as mp3 This format is used for publishing on web and offline playback on computers. It is a compressed format with a slightly lower quality. Mp3 files consumes approximately 1 MB for 1 minute music with 441000 sample rate. To export your music as mp3 files follow these steps 1. Click Fle Export as mp3 2. Give the file name 3. Apply OK Setting your wav and mp3 quality Before you export it is important to set your quality settings for wav and mp3 export. To set the quality settings for export files (wav and mp3) follow these steps. 1. Go to Edit Preferences 2. Then Go to Quality 3. Set Default sample rate 441000 Hz for wav file 4. And Default sample format 16 bit 5. Then go to File Formats 6. Set Bit rate (192) for mp3 files 7. Apply OK Adding mp3 export ability with Audacity You need to download mp3 library version Lame v3.93 to use the Audacity mp3 export feature. For this follow these steps I. Download the Lame v3.93 Library online. II. Download on your disk III. Go to Edit Preferences IV. Then File Formats V. Then MP3 Export Setup Find Library VI. Say Yes (to Locate lame_enc.dll now?) VII. Show it the location of lame_enc.dll (downloaded file) Saving Once you are done with your project and want happy ending your recording session, save your project by following options 1. Go to File save 2. Give the project name 3. Apply OK You can start working on your project in the next session by giving File Open and selecting the file. 8

Microphones There are two ways to add your microphones with computer. I. Through the mixer II. Directly into computer hardware (sound card) When you are using mixer When you are using mixer you have range of options depending on the kind of acoustics your vocal and instruments produce. With using mixer you have finer controls over signal produced by your microphone through mixer. You can fine tune the signal by changing settings with your mixer controls. Connecting directly to sound card Soundcard has option to connect your microphone into it. You can add a good quality computer microphone to produce good results. Make sure it is good for music or vocal. Plugging the microphone directly through soundcard reduces the risk of matching together. Computer microphones produce good quality sound recording and may be easily set up at home without investing much on mixers and microphones. They are easily affordable and transportable. Microphone Types There are two types of microphones used for music recording I. Condenser Microphones II. Dynamic Microphones Condenser Microphones are more sensitive to higher frequencies and more sensitive. They add realism and more details. Condenser microphones have two types small diaphragm and large diaphragm. Small diaphragm condenser microphones are used for live performances and recordings. Large Diaphragm Condenser microphones produce better low frequency response which results into high fidelity sound for vocals and instrumentals. Large diaphragm condenser microphones have low self noise (the hiss sound, that microphone produces). Which is the good microphone Selection of good microphone depends on performance and personal taste. If you want the highest sensitivity, the lowest self noise and realistic sound you should go for large diaphragm microphone. If you like the way your voice appears in recordings regardless of diaphragm size, you have found the right microphone. Microphone Placement Microphone placement is largely a matter of personal taste. Here are the main tips related to the placement of microphones. 9

I. Maintain 6 12 distance from your mouth. II. Aim the microphone, from above or below your mouth. III. Prefer to use an external pop filter IV. Try to speak directly into the microphone V. Try different recordings with different placements of microphones and see which sound better VI. Try to place microphone only as close as necessary What is a good sound Everybody wants to record good music, this good sound includes following ingredients. Audibility : The first important thing is the level of sound. It should not put strain to listener hearing the sound. A good sound is audible with clarity. Intelligibility: Every song has some meaning. Words of songs should be clearly intelligible to be translated into meaning for listener. Speech and music both have a communicative significance. Poor pronunciation, poor recording and much unnecessary voice or music may result into poor intelligibility. Fidelity: Directions of sound it is coming from and the frequency range it delivers decides the fidelity (realism of sound). If it has tonal character and looks real as original performance, it has fidelity. The first rule of recording good sound The first principle of recording good sound is to record the sound the best at the first place. Once recorded post processing can not make it any better. Mixers Mixers become important when you more devices to record with. They help you giving multiple input options and to process them giving multiple outputs for recording device. Here are the main points to take care when choosing a mixer. I. Mixer you choose should have enough input channels II. Mixer you choose should have more output channels III. Your mixer should have output for every instrument you use, for multitrack recording. IV. Keep some additional space of input and output channels for future use. Audio Interface An audio interface connects audio device to the computer. It converts analog signal into digital sound. There are two kinds of audio interface Internal (the sound card of your computer) and external (a standalone audio interface box) Recording Software Recording software includes basic functions like accepting input, mixing, editing and effects processing. Other important features that make a recording software ability to process the sound and giving effects. It should also be supported by upgradeable effects library. 10

Effects Processing Effects are applied to enhance the overall sound quality. Effects are applied sometimes to the individual track and sometimes to the finished recording. Effects may be useful for some part of your recording. They should be chosen with care as they affect the overall nature of your recording. Your music ends here Good music can be made with Tabla loops and basic recording knowledge. Inspiration is the key ingredient that helps creating good music. Tabla loops being the fundamental unit of rhythm can be very much useful for creating good music. A much sight is yet to put, to see the music composition from rhythm point of view. Copyright Tabla Radio 11